July 29, 2009

Steve Mekmun is good for something after all. I think PP Land organised a really good programme for the fans. Which compensates for the inconvenience and expense of having to travel to dreadful Singkapor.

Missed the Meet the Fans session. Think that was held on their first day in Sg with Mascherano and someone or other.( I’m a bit saddened that only Carra is left from the 2001 team that I went to see in Singapor )

But there were plenty of opportunities to stalk if you were ‘gigih’ like me and my friends.

You could hang around the hotel where they’re staying, especially in front of the lift. Click. Click. Click.

Or the lobby. Click. Click. Click.

You could find out their training schedule and wait by the bus. Click. Click. Click.

You could go to the LFC River Cruise and gawk and ogle all the players. Click.Click.Click.

Yes, there were plenty of opportunities if you were TALL, which sadly I’m not.

Although you have to be very lucky to be able to take pictures with the team. Thanks to the gazillions of bouncers aka guys wearing Profitable Protection tees (LOL). They were bigger than Din, Vincent, Naz, Mr Singh (not Shabby), Tigerjoe and Sicko : combined.

Here's another picture of the Hunky Manly Profitable Protectorsfor the viewing pleasure of Men.United fans.

Funny moment:We were hanging around the fourth floor hoping to catch the guys go for something or other when suddenly all the bouncers, I mean, Profitable Protectors, rushed down the lift. Of course, all the stalkers also went down the lift. Except me and my friend. We were having full English Tea (recommended by the way) and had to pay first before we can follow suit.

Just as we were approaching the lift, one of the bouncers, I mean, Profitable Protectors, stopped us. Hallelujah. I immediately reached for my camera. The door of the lift opens. Nary a player was in there. Only a folded wheelchair. Wtf?

Not so funny moment:We were so excited to go to the match, we didn’t even think about how to go back after the game. There was a massive jam. No taxi in sight. So we walked and walked and walked for 45 freaking minutes. Farking Singakapor.

Good thing Vincent is not Singkaporean.Honestly babe, it was worse over there. The MC was going ‘This is Anfield’ the whole time. Never mind the stadium is the standard of our Stadium Merdeka. Don’t know if you lot caught this on telly but they had some Clare Something sang Barbara Streisand’s version of YNWA to open the match! And this was not followed by the Singkapor National Anthem.

The immigration guy told us, ‘make sure LFC trash Singkapor’. The two concierges who remember me from the time I stayed there when I went over to meet Robbie (oh, how I love saying that. I think I’ll say it again, ....when I went over to meet Robbie), told me they were betting that LFC would trash Singkapor 6-0.

A word of advice to female fansDo not expect a TALL male friend to bother taking pictures of Torres when he took off his jersey. Apparently, this sort of thing just do not occur to them.

The gameFirst half was freaking boring, we aimed our binoculars at the bench instead. Rafa is fat. Kuyt and Riera didn’t stop talking for the whole 45 minutes: yak, yak, yak. Alonso was yawning non-stop. Benayoun is a skinny git.

Conversation with Carra(Caught him for all of 3 minutes before one of the bouncers, I mean, Profitable Protectors, shielded him)

July 25, 2009

Once upon a time,There were five gay men,Who lived in Manchester.They couldn't play rugby,So they decided to play football instead.They had so much fun playing together gether,That they decided to start a club.And that's how Manchester United was formed.Otherwise known as Man United.Or known in these HB parts as Men.United.Sekian terima kasih.

July 19, 2009

3 years ago, I found it virtually impossible to land my hands on a Malaysian jersey, and now, I still pretty much found myself in the same problem as before. The day before the big game, I embarked on another treasure hunt to find the new design jersey to wear for the game. Yes, I maybe a Manyoo fan, but fuck that shit - I am a Malaysian first and foremost.

Anyway, after running all around town like a headless chicken trying to find the mythical jersey, I found myself in Midvalley where the first obvious choice to look was the Nike store. Nike are the makers of the jersey, so what better place to start?

But I was wrong. Nike was busying whoring the new Manyoo kit which they conveniently launched 2 days before the start of their Asian tour. The whole front portion of the store was filled with the Ultraman look-a-like jerseys and the walls were adourned with posted of Manyoo players in the new kit. Among the posters was that of one Danny Welbeck (wot!?!). When I approached one of the sales people, he told me that they had ran out of stock for the Malaysian jerseys. "When is stock coming in?" "Dunno lah."

So, I went next door to Studio R, where the Malaysian jersey was tucked in some obscure corner (but at least they had it). I asked the bloke if they had a lot left and he said there were tons left in the storeroom. In fact they were flogging off the jerseys at a 30% discount, which made me think that the Nike store's 'out of stock' story is absolute ballocks. It was not 'out of stock'. Quite simply, Nike didn't stock it anymore and much preferred to flog off the Manyoo jerseys to suckers who call themselves Manchester United 'fans'.

Who do you blame here? Do you blame the idiots who preferred to pay upwards of RM250 everytime Manyoo launches a new jersey but refuse to pay RM180 ONE-OFF for their own national team jersey? Or do you blame Nike for not doing enough?

After the exploits of the previous day, it came no surprise to me when I went to the stadium the next day to find myself surrounded by thousands of idiots in Manyoo jerseys. I parked quite a far distance from the stadium, and joined the crowd in walking there. There were thousands of people around me all dressed in RED and I felt like an outsider wearing the Yellow and Black stripes. It almost felt like I was in Manchester and going to the stadium to support the away team.

Only after about 15 minutes of walking and near the stadium did I see the first guy (besides myself) wearing the Tiger Stripes. I walked up to him and said, "Bang, lawanya baju...." He smiled back.

Put it this way lah, it is a bloody travesty to go watch your OWN national team and support anybody else. If you could afford to pay money for your Manyoo jersey (fake or otherwise), then you can also surely afford to pay money for a Malaysian jersey. And I don't care if you cheered for Malaysia when they scored...if you were wearing a Manyoo jersey, that's already considered a grave offence. That's pathetic glory hunting - to support both teams at the same game! And no matter what people want to say about cheering for the Malaysian team, it cannot be denied that the biggest cheers were saved for the team in RED, not our local team.

The next thing that really annoyed me was when the teams walked out on the pitch. WHY THE FUCK WAS MALAYSIA DRESSED IN BLUE? We are the fucking HOME team, yeah. The home team wears their HOME colours. The away team has to accomodate to make sure it doesn't clash. Malaysia' HOME colours are yellow and black and obviously somebody decided that that clashes with Manyoo's RED. So instead of asking Manyoo to change to their away kit, we had to accomodate them?! What the fuck is this shit? Was it because they wanted to flaunt their new RED jersey?

Then, came the most pissing off part.

Near where I was sitting, there was an old man (wearing a pink long sleeved shirt and immaculately pressed long pants). He didn't bother sitting - he spent the entire time on the terrace steps and he spent the entire 90 minutes shouting. Not occasionally, not just when the action was going on. He was shouting NON-STOP throughout, "Come on Malaysia, come on!" He kept repeating it over and over again like CD player going on loop. In between that, he would burst into a rant about something random "Keeper tinggi tapi bodoh" or "Kalau orang Malaysia tak nak sokong Malaysia, buanglah IC".

Now, I thought this was fantastic since it added to the whole atmosphere, but people around were annoyed at him. As early as 5 minutes into the game (hence 5 full minutes of "Come on Malaysia, come on) people around me were making snide remarks of "Oh My God why won't he stop?", "Shit that guy is irritating" and "He must really like Liverpool" After the girl behind me remarked for the 20th time to her father, "Why won't he shut up?" I turned around to her and told her, "because this is how REAL football fans are"

Instead of cheering their own team (Malaysia), people come donning jerseys in support of Manyoo, and even then also fail to give proper support (no singing of songs, only cheering when Manyoo play well) and these idiots don't even recognise what real fans are about. These are the so-called Manyoo fans who cheered crazily for Micheal Owen and gave a muted response to Neville and Scholes. Fuck you people man. As much as I want Owen to succeed, he has done NOTHING yet. Giggs got the biggest cheer of the night (and rightly so) but for any Manyoo fan to cheer Owen (even sing his name before the game starts, chant his name when he came on, and chant again when he took his medal) is just plainly disrespectful towards people who have given their all to the club like Paul Scholes and Gary Neville who were given the silent treatment.

And of course, the rest of the disgusting behaviour of Malaysians like boo-ing their own national team. Some people tried to defend the booing by saying that the boos were only reserved for some really bad passing. I agree, the boos were only heard when the passing was real bad or when Malaysia were reduced to taking pot shots from outside the box. But that logic doesn't hold water because for much of the night, Anderson's passing was rubbish and he was robbed off the ball many, many times. Tosic was doing jackshite on the left wing and nothing was made of Owen missing a clear chance when unmarked in the 6 yard box.

After the final result, instead of praising the Malaysian KIDS (KIDS, yah, not the full strength squad) for their gutsy performance, many morons started mouthing off about 'Manyoo give chance' and 'Manyoo show face'. Get trashed and people will ridicule you and your whole family. Get a good result and people say that you were given face. With that kind of attitude why would kids grow up wanting to play football for their country?!

With this kind of attitude from Malaysians, is there any more mystery who Malaysian football is in the doldrums?

July 17, 2009

Samuel L Jackson proudly displays his Liverpool shirt at the Annual ESPY sports ceremony at Los Angeles which baffles most Americans who have no clue about soccer apart from the fact that David Beckham is Tom Cruise's secret lover and Cristiano Ronaldo was dumped by Paris Hilton for being sissy.

Jackson also revealed that he has been a fan of Liverpool eversince he starred in the 2001 Brit Flick, The 51st State, which was shot at Merseyside, where his character Elmo McElroy takes in a Liverpool-Manchester United clash.

* He is ultra professional, never late for training, extremely good at dancing which makes other people laugh, popular with all team mates (although a natural aversion to Danes comes with all Togonian footballers) and a true ambassador of the game.

If you want more information on how to Adebayorise your team, read here. Seriously a hoot, to quote Jeeves.

July 09, 2009

“It was the same when I met [Liverpool and England midfielder] Steven Gerrard. I had an opportunity to have a conversation with him and I was tongue-tied. I’ve met the biggest actors and actresses in the world and I’m easy and comfortable but give me Gerrard and I’m in trouble.“

July 05, 2009

It's kinda difficult to be serious these days, when everything is plain MENTAL.

80 million pounds for a boy. In a one-off payment. No progressive payments, no installment, no misc bonuses. Just 80 million in cold, hard cash.

Then you have Spain, losing and fuck, getting outplayed by America. Fucking U-S-A. Iniesta and Xavi getting fucked in midfield. To who, again!?!

Ananda wanting to buy Newcastle?!

Owen to Manyoo............what the fuck is going on in the world???

The last mental transfer we ever had before this was Tevez and Mascherano to fucking WEST HAM, but that was about it!!

But okay, to be serious....

Owen on a free transfer, why not? And on only 50K a week? Sure! 50K a week is nothing these days...even John O Shea is on 50K a week. We have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

And I said it then, I say it again...80 million for Ronaldo is good business. Who cares if he is worth 30 goals a season? Who cares if in hindsight we find out that we can't sign anybody. NOBODY is worth 80 million. Up front. In cash. In a one-off payment.

To be honest, I never fancied Owen. Partly because he played for Liverpool. Partly because the first time I saw him play, he got sent off against Manyoo. And partly because Shebby proudly declared on Astro Supersport all those years ago that, "Owen doesn't dribble the ball. He kicks the ball and runs after it."

You know that goal against Argentina in the World Cup? The one when Beckham got screwed over? I never found anything that special about it. It was good. But great?! Never. If you watch it again, you would find that the defence was just rubbish. He runs past the central midfielder, and then soon finds himself face to face with the centreback, who instead of holding his ground, sells himself and lets Owen cut past. And then when it should be a difficult shot from a tight angle, the stupid keeper comes off his line to close him down when there are 2 defenders tracking back.

So, Owen. Good player. Not great, but acceptable.

Before you people go on gloating or complaining...just a quick history lesson.

In the summer of 1995, Fergie sold Mark Hughes, Paul Ince and Andrei Kanchelski. He replaced them with Scholes, Beckham, Butt and Gary Neville. A famous scouser called Alan Hansen would then go on to say one of the most infamous words in football history - "You'll never win anything with kids"

Can you still hear Martin Tyler scream "MACHEDDAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"??

Two years later, Eric Cantona retired. Fergie replaced him with an old washed up Englishman called Teddy Sheringham.

July 02, 2009

Once upon a time; in a faraway land where the sun hardly shines; a long, long time ago; back when Men.United fans weren't even born yet; and when men were still men; pink flowers only adorned the ears of a comely woman and pink t-shirts and trousers were only worn by girls who watch Grease; something happened.

The year was 1952. Datuk Mohamad Busby saw Sean Connery playing football for the theatre troupe he was working for and offered him a place in the Men.United squad for a whopping £25 a week immediately after the game.

After giving the matter a serious thought for about 3 seconds, Sean gave his answer. 'I"m shorry Tok Mat. Tis a very generoush offer. But I cannae, cannae, simply cannae play for a poofter club. I dinnae wannae be one of your Babes. I wannae be Bond. Jamesh Bond."